TOO JEWISH?
CHALLENGING
TRADITIONAL
IDENTITIES
Part 6 of 8

Re-Inventing Ritual

Re-Inventing Ritual focuses on artists who update Jewish ritual by incorporating contemporary concerns into traditional ritual and observance. Many of the works in this section are double-edged. Not only do they blur distinctions between secular and religious, but they also treat Judaism as a source of both inspiration and contention. Ironically, because of their religious motivations, their art has often been excluded from galleries and museums on the grounds that it is "too Jewish." Archie Rand's installation, a large-scale series of extravagant paintings entitled The Chapter Paintings (1989), depicts themes from 54 weekly Torah portions, merging quotations from Jewish iconographic sources with those from a variety of painting styles, including Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Allan Wexler's Indoor Sukkah (1991), incorporating the artistic language of architecture, conceptual art, and craft, transforms a ritual based on the agricultural origins of ancient Judaism into an urban-based yet environmentally sensitive structure.


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